Sony said the opposite actually, it was that they would never rush an incomplete product to market or something like that. That they focus on being the best, not the first out. They even recently said they weren't gonna release their specs first because the competition could just see that and 1up them afterward.

Everyone who believes ps4 will launch this year is plain out of there mind. They unvield the psvita in January 2011 and it released in Japan in December and the rest of the world 2 months after. They will let time slide once its reveled. There not in a rush. Kaz even stated they will let Microsoft take first move.

Of course steambox will compete with the next gen consoles, because 'next gen' consoles aren't high end like he says.

It seems at best the next gen consoles will have a downclocked ATI 7850, lowish-medium end graphics card in it.

From the rumors I've read about Steambox is that it'll have multiple spec levels, but the midrange should easily compete with the next gen, just as Nintendo will, maybe even better than Nintendo will, and Nintendo definitely will.

It's also not entirely up to Sony and MS on how long consoles cycles last. Of course it is in that they can make a decision to make another console anytime, but only after a certain time can they convince someone it's worth the upgrade and beyond that if it's too often, it'll piss people off and many would skip that generation altogether.

Monthly subscription isn't going to fly very much. People don't want to pay $20 bucks a month for something that they could get $50 a year to have. Most would choose to purchase it at full price and then pay $50 a year. If they segregate it, and force a segment of launch consoles on those plans, it'll once again piss people off and be a disaster.

I wonder how the free games would work? After all they take $10 bucks from every disc sold. Why should the main devs pay $10 bucks while the 'free' dev's pay nothing? If the dev's DO have to pay, then they'll have to pay for every person who loads the game once and never plays again costing alot of money and having much higher overhead then PC free to play games.

There can only be so many entrants, the more there is the greater the likelihood of us having another 1983 gaming crash.

I wouldn't say Nintendo is 'behind' with it's online system. It's new, but with major AAA games available day 1 for digital download, they have already caught up in many of it's ways. BLOPS2 plays just as well on Nintendo network as it does xboxlive. Their linking of the gamepad to a TV remote, guide, and potentially DVR is quite wide ranging. People keep waiting for Apple TV (who I don't know...but idiots keep looking for it), and Nintendo already has something out in reality. All the apps and functions the others have are already there or soon arriving. Besides it's only a few years behind anyways, 360/PS3 didn't launch with these and who cares what console you link to them. You don't even need a console to enjoy them.

Smartglass and Playstation Mobile aren't 3rd party. Seeing how you can use the Nintendo gamepad to utilize apps (if that's what they meant by 3rd party) as well, and you have far more functionality with the gamepad, this is not a concern.